On any given day, in a veggie shop, dairy or the supermarket, you will find heaps of people buying bananas. The ones we find in NZ usually come from the Philippines (71%) or Ecuador (29%). Unlike Australia, we can't grow bananas in our backyards, so hence the importation of this tropical fruit. It's quite interesting to note that Kiwis really love bananas. According to the 2009/10 Household Economic Survey, an average of $88 per year was spent for bananas, while the closest rival apples was only $61 per year. Please click on Statistics New Zealand Statistic New Zealand to know more about this.
I was raised in a country with a diet heavy on bananas: boiled, fried, sweetened, cooked, fresh, banana flour, banana cakes, as well as eating the other parts of the banana: flowers and stalks. I even got to know of someone who has started making "vegemeat" out of banana peelings, calling it banana burger patties. Alas, I didn't get the chance to taste it.
The kind of bananas we get here in NZ are limited in terms of variety. I think they're the Cavendish-type. I miss the ones that I grew up with. I can still recall the days spent on the farm carrying the banana trunks for replanting up the hill. After nine months they begin to show flowers and fruits. There is even a red-skinned colour banana, the one my grandmother used to make into sweet cakes. Another variety is really very sweet and very small too, just over the size of a thumb.
The next time you meet a banana, just think and remember where it came from. And that it took a very long journey just to be with you!
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